Actually whether the water is reused or just discarded depends more so on where you are. For cities and towns that have river sources this may be the case, but in socal there are no such sources - most of our water is either imported or pumped from the ground. Some of the wastewater is reused for irrigation, but as far as I know there is only one plant in socal that pumps the wastewater back into the aquifer.

So in order to get around isps bitching about too much netflix traffic someone uses a vpn. They may very well use one of these "VPN providers" that you claim exist to carry "legitimate traffic."

Usage of a VPN for non-business purposes doesn't automatically mean criminal activity. If the FBI knows a VPN provider is being marketed as a service for hiding criminal activity there is nothing stopping them from getting a warrant now - loosening the restrictions is just a power grab.

If you actually bothered to read her works you'd realize that she does not fault science. In the Madd Addam trilogy (Oryx and Crake, The year of the Flood, Madd Addam) she creates a world where science has run amok, but does not blame science for the disaster. Instead she pillories the hubris of the scientists, who sought to make themselves gods, and capitalism run amok, which has completely unmade the modern class system we have today and reverted it to the more stratified system of centuries past.

MarkWhittington writes: It turns out that the recent FAA environmental impact statement that seemed to give a stamp of approval for the proposed SpaceX space port in south Texas is not the end of the regulatory process, but the end of the beginning. A story in the Brownsville Herald reminds us that the report has kicked off a 30 day review period after which the FAA can allow SpaceX to apply for a launch license to start work on the Brownsville area launch facility. And that in turn kicks off a 180 day process during which the FAA makes the decision whether or not to grant the required licensing and permits.

But even that is not the end of the regulatory hurdles that SpaceX must face before the first Falcon rocket roars into the skies over the Gulf of Mexico. The Longview News-Journal reports that a number of state and federal agencies must give their approval for various aspects of the space port before it becomes operational. For instance, the Texas Department of Transportation must give approval for the movement of utility lines.

Environment Texas still opposes the space port since it is close to a wild life reserve and a state park. SpaceX has already agreed to enact measures to minimize the impact the space port would have on the environment, “such as containing waste materials from the construction and enforcing a speed limit in the control center area.” Environment Texas is not impressed, however. Whether it is disposed to make trouble in the courts is an open question.

Downvoting over disagreement is the flaw of any vote-based system (and upvoting based on agreement too). I also haven't run into too many egregious abuse cases on Slashdot. The vast majority of -1 content seems to be flamebait and spam. I agree with you that anonymous moderation is bad - it fails to discourage frivolous moderation, but I wouldn't call the Slashdot moderation system anonymous. Although individual moderation actions are anonymous, you can consider the moderator to be "the community." There are far worse moderation systems out there; compared to them Slashdot is paradise.

My sister's friend had her phone stolen recently and when she called the LAPD about it, they also refused to do anything about it and pretty much told her that it was not their policy to go chasing after stolen phones. She later attempted to confront the fence that stole her phone and ultimately was unsuccessful in recovering her phone.

An anonymous reader writes: Developers of the Free Software Foundation endorsed Replicant OS have uncovered a backdoor through Android on Samsung Galaxy devices and the Nexus S. The research indicates the proprietary Android versions have a blob handling communication with the modem using Samsung's IPC protocol and in turn there's a set of commands that allow the modem to do remote I/O operations on the phone's storage. Replicant's open-source version of Android does away with the Samsung library to fend off the potential backdoor issue.

Support for HDMI-CEC events would actually solve the problem of the display updating; it would know when the tv is powered off or it ceased to be the active source and could disable updating the background until it becomes the active source again.

GnetworkGnome writes: Monday evening, 30 December 2013, hackers reporting from the Twitter account @DerpTrolling began following one of the most prolific video game streamers, PhantomL0rd, and started taking down Online video game servers on which he was playing. At its highest point, nearly 150,000 viewers watched the streamer, after League of Legends, DoTA2, and other games were interrupted. The hackers even posted the personal information of PhantomL0rd, then called the police to inform them that five hostages were being held at his residence. Police arrested the streamer as he emerged from his house for questioning.

Hours later, PhantomL0rd returned to an audience of nearly 100,000 viewers to explain what had happened. @DerpTrolling tweeted "@PhantomL0rd Glad you're back and okay." to the streamer upon news that he had been returned home. Nothing on the methods of the hackers has been confirmed, but massive DDOS attacks were believed to be their attack of choice against video game servers and more.

If I transport you back in time and drop you in the middle of some cavemen and Ug decides he wants to kill you he will not hand you a club to defend yourself with first; he will simply bash your skull in. Rights are a societal concept. For example I believe that all people have the right to be treated equally. While many would agree with me, that "right" is in fact a relatively modern invention.

Also if the Constitution simply codified natural rights and the right to own a gun was an extension of the right to self defense then gun laws today would be much more strict. There are many legal firearms today that are obviously meant to serve a much more offensive purpose. The whole Bill of Rights was designed with one purpose in mind - to keep government tyranny in check.

When you say things like that I can see exactly why Bentham called natural rights "nonsense on stilts." Guns have not always existed and so therefore your argument is flawed right there. The right to gun ownership is conferred through the second amendment of the Constitution so therefore it is a legal right.